My U.S. Pat. No. 4,908,713 discloses a system for providing a schedule of future video programming available to a video recorder to a database memory located at the recorder so that the operator may display selected sections of the future schedule as an aid in choosing programs for recording. The schedule may be provided to the memory and updated either by broadcasting schedule information or by delivering disposable memories to the system on a subscription basis. Other of my applications disclose such systems in which the video recorder is programmed for unattended recording of a future program by simply pointing a cursor at the listing of that program on the schedule display. Since the system already stores the data required to record the program, it is unnecessary for the operator to re-enter the same data. My application Ser. No. 802,249 further discloses such a system in which the local memory stores the identification of programs that have been recorded and allows their display in order to select previously recorded programs for viewing.
These systems greatly simplify the problems of selecting programs for recording, actually performing the recording process, and viewing recorded programs. They suffer from the disadvantage of adding hardware and software to existing video cassette recorders or cable boxes which do not contain a schedule memory and a database program for selecting particular entries on the memory for display.